


shepherd for a day

by screamlet



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Animal Transformation, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 05:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10757763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: Armed with a hockey stick, Nicky opened the front door and stepped outside.It was a sheep.It had one row of bottom teeth and in the middle of that one row of teeth was a gap.“Oh, come on,” Nicky complained. “It’s only Tuesday.”The sheep laughed at him.





	shepherd for a day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [babygotbackstrom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygotbackstrom/gifts), [angularmomentum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angularmomentum/gifts).



There was a very large dog eating the shrubbery outside Nicky’s front door. It didn’t make sense—that a dog was eating shrubs, that any of his neighbors’ dogs had grown tall enough to come up to his thigh, that a dog eating shrubs as Nicky watched through the translucent curtains of his front windows could also be a dog that looked like it weighed close to 300 pounds. 

Those last couple of things made Nicky take another sip of his coffee and look for a spare hockey stick, just in case he had to fight off a monster dog that only ate shrubs to supplement its diet of raw screaming human flesh. 

Armed with a hockey stick, Nicky opened the front door and stepped outside.

It was a sheep. 

It was a black-and-grey sheep, black up to the shoulders and fading to grey towards the rest of its giant sheep body. It had enormous curved horns, each one the size of Nicky’s entire fucking head. It blinked at him and Nicky blinked back. The sheep had horizontal pupils and they were freaking him the fuck out.

The pupils were the scariest part until it opened its mouth. It had one row of bottom teeth and in the middle of that one row of teeth was a gap.

“Oh, come on,” Nicky complained. “It’s only Tuesday.”

The sheep laughed at him. 

*

The first thing Nicky did was take Ovi the sheep around his house from the front yard to the backyard. There was a lot more pointless shrubbery there of all different kinds. Nicky had bought the house without caring enough to question the plantlife and upkeep; he appreciated the trees and tall hedges around the property, and now he appreciated that his best friend, who was a sheep today, seemed to enjoy grazing from several different places around the yard until he came back to Nicky.

Before he went to check the weather outside and found a sheep instead, Nicky had made himself a plate of scrambled eggs. Nicky brought the plate outside and sat down on the steps of his back porch. As soon as he sat down, Ovi left the shrubbery and joined him on the steps.

“What?” Nicky asked.

Ovi licked up half the eggs and smiled at him.

“What the fuck?” Nicky asked. He tugged the plate closer on his lap and pulled out his phone. “God, don’t tell me the third thing you did as a sheep was fucking poison yourself. Why hasn’t anyone on google ever fed a sheep scrambled eggs before?”

Ovi went for the rest of the eggs, but Nicky put the plate behind him and pushed it away. Ovi, the 230-pound sheep with giant curved horns, tried to nudge at Nicky to get to the plate, but Nicky pushed Ovi away with a foot to his wooly side. 

“Go on, I pay enough for all this gardening, the least you could do is eat it,” Nicky said. “If you’re not going to tell me why you’re a sheep.”

Ovi made a noise and climbed off the stairs so he could fold his legs under him and lie down on the grass.

“What do I tell the boys, hmm?” Nicky asked. “Why you’re not coming to practice?”

Ovi stared at Nicky with those fucking terrifying pupils. He seemed unconcerned. 

“Fine,” Nicky said. “Can I leave you here while I go make another breakfast?”

Ovi seemed indifferent.

“All right,” Nicky said. “I’m going to make more eggs. Don’t… do anything. Don’t leave. Don’t eat something poisonous. Don’t sharpen your horns against the railing, I just had them painted.” Nicky rolled his eyes at himself. “You know that, you helped me paint them. Don’t ruin them. Don’t die. Just stay there.”

Ovi now looked skeptical, for a fucking sheep, so Nicky went inside to make himself breakfast.

*

When he tried to leave for practice, Nicky learned that sheep could run at a terrifying speed. 

He ate his new unlicked-by-sheep breakfast on the back porch with Ovi dozing on the grass in the sunshine, then went inside to gather his things and throw them in his car. Nicky went to the backyard once more and checked on Ovi.

Ovi looked up at him with sleepy sheep eyes, the horizontal pupils very much still there and aware of Nicky and aware of their surroundings. Nicky considered it, then reached out and pat Ovi on the head, between the horns. Ovi the sheep closed his eyes again and Nicky considered that enough.

Of course, then Nicky walked around to the front of the house, climbed into his SUV, started the car, and screamed when a massive black-and-grey blur barreled towards him. Ovi ran out from behind a shrub, across the grass and the paved walkway to the front door, and reared up on his hind legs at the driver’s side door. Sheep could scream and Nicky screamed back.

“WHAT?” Nicky yelled. “WE HAVE PRACTICE!” 

Ovi’s hooves banged against the driver’s side door again and he reared with his horns like he was an actual sheep with actual horns about to ram into the side of Nicky’s car. 

“YOU ARE A SHEEP,” Nicky yelled. “GO BACK IN THE YARD.” 

Ovi backed up a little further and lowered his head.

Nicky climbed out of the car and opened the back seat. “If you can climb up here, you—”

Ovi ran and climbed in with ease.

“You fucking asshole,” Nicky said. 

That being said, Nicky didn’t leave for practice, no matter how many times Ovi prodded his shoulder from the backseat with his giant curved horns that were probably thisclose to accidentally puncturing Nicky’s jugular if Ovi the sheep nuzzled him at the wrong angle.

“You can’t come to practice,” Nicky said. “You’re a sheep.”

Ovi protested.

“Listen, Ovi, you remember me, you remember my face, you should remember that _downtown Arlington_  will notice a sheep walking around,” Nicky snapped. “And what are you going to do at practice? Sit around on your giant sheep ass—”

Ovi protested and this time he sounded sad, because Nicky was losing his fucking mind and reading _feeling_ and _intention_ into the black-and-grey sheep with the missing tooth that had showed up at his house to eat his plants and his breakfast and demand a trip to see their practice and their boys.

Oh. Their boys.

Nicky started the car again and scowled at himself because a sheep had just played him.

*

It was hard to say if this was the most embarrassed he had ever been walking into Kettler for practice. Road games, for sure, he had shown up to morning practice with too much evidence of a good time, those times that Ovi-once-a-man-now-a-sheep had taken him out and urged pretty and pliable people at Nicky, hoping Nicky would have a good time because Ovi was having a good time.

Those were good times. Good enough, for what they were. 

Of course, stripping in the changing room and hoping a full-body blush would hide the awful things done to his neck and his shoulders and his back the night before was nothing compared to the sheep whining in his ear to be let out of the car to graze and be free and see their friends and—

—And how did people in stories, once they had been cursed into animals, become human again? Nicky couldn’t think of a single one that ended well. There was one that kept coming back to him, the hunter transformed into a stag who was then torn apart by his own hunting dogs. If anyone had enough giant dogs for that kind of justice, it sure as shit was Ovi, and Nicky wasn’t going to let that happen.

Ovi the sheep whined in his ear, so much like the real Ovi sounded when _Nickyyyyyyyyyypleasepleaseplease_ needed to do something for him, like come out to one more bar, dance to one more song, smile one more time, just one more smile for him before they went to their separate rooms for the night. 

That was the point when Nicky had to get out of the car and let his goddamn sheep out into the Kettler lot. 

Nicky climbed out of his car and then opened the door for Ovi the sheep, who hopped out, took in his surroundings, and headed for the first patch of flowers at the edge of the parking lot.

“Nope nope nope,” Nicky said, nudging Ovi with his foot. “Come on, let’s go inside. I’ll leave you in the changing room and then I’ll get my things.”

Ovi whined, either because Nicky was urging him away from eating any random plants that grew in the Kettler lot or for the imminent threat of being abandoned to their team. 

“Don’t give me that,” Nicky asid. “It’s the team, our boys. They’ll take good care of you, for once. The least they can do for all the times you bought them Starbucks and promised they wouldn’t be deported for being caught speeding 65 to Costco.” 

Ovi whined again.

“I don’t know what kind of pesticides they use here,” Nicky said. The security guards at the back door of Kettler let him and Ovi inside and, honestly, Nicky talking to the sheep about pesticides was probably less concerning than having a sheep at all. 

“New addition to the family?” joked one of the guards. 

“Yes,” Nicky said. “Lundqvist looked like this before he hit puberty.”

The cackling followed him through the corridors to the changing room, which was already buzzing with activity. Of course he’d be last in the room the day he brought a sheep to practice. Nicky took a deep breath, then nudged Ovi the sheep into the room ahead of him. 

“Boys,” he announced confidently.

The room went silent.

“What the fuck is that?” Jojo asked. 

Right across from the door, not a foot from the curious sheep inspecting the room for something edible, was Alex, sitting in his usual stall in his usual Under Armour. Alex stared at the sheep, and then stared at Nicky like _Nicky_ had lost his fucking mind. 

“That’s a fucking sheep, Nicky,” said Alex, Sasha, Ovi the very Russian and very human man. 

“...Alex?” Nicky asked. “What the fuck? What are you doing here?”

Alex stared at him, truly blank. Nicky knew him almost as well as he knew himself—Alex loved pranks, but he hated acting more. 

“What am I doing here?” Alex asked. “What am I doing here… instead of your sheep?”

Nicky’s mouth had caught a case of the non-functional terminal dry mouth.

“The sheep is you!” Nicky said. “Look at it! It’s black-and-grey and—Andre, look at its teeth!”

“I’m not touching that thing,” Andre said. 

“Ovi,” Nicky said, firmly, in the sheep’s direction. Ovi the sheep turned his head and smiled at Nicky, showing off its one row of teeth with the gap in the middle. 

“Oh,” Alex said. “You saw a sheep that looked like me, so you stole the sheep and brought it here?” He paused before he asked, “Did you _drive here_ with a _sheep_ in your car?”

“It looks just like you!” Nicky yelled. 

“IT’S A FUCKING SHEEP.”

“It was in my yard this morning, eating the shrubs, and it looked like you—”

“I AM NOT A SHEEP.”

“IT KNEW ME.”

“IT’S A SHEEP, NICKY.” 

“Is it a ram, though?” Justin asked, one hand raised like he was in school and like he wasn’t one of the oldest people in the changing room. “With the horns and the massive balls?”

“Nicky,” Alex said. “Why the fuck is there a ram with massive balls in our changing room?”

“Shut up, stop saying it like that!” Nicky protested. “Stop saying that you waking up as a sheep one day and turning up at my house so you could still come to practice would be the weirdest thing that ever happened to you in hockey!”

“Definitely weirdest this season,” Alex said. He sighed and leaned down to unlace his skates. “Get changed for practice, I’ll get a big sheep salad for our big sheep from across the street, then after practice…” Alex shook his head like that part would come to him later. 

“If you’re going to adopt the sheep, it needs a flock,” Holtby chimed in. “Can’t keep just one sheep around. Gonna need at least four or five. You’ve got a couple of acres, right, Ovi?”

“We’re not keeping the sheep,” Nicky said. “I have no problem eating kebabs now that I know it’s not Alex.”

Tom squawked from the other side of the room and threw a roll of tape at Nicky. “Come on! That sheep loves you, even if it’s not Ovi cursed into a sheep or something. No one’s gonna eat him.” Tom threw another roll of tape for good measure, but Nicky caught that one easily and beaned it back at him. 

“You thought he was cursed?” Oshie asked. “Does that happen a lot in Europe?”

“Yeah, all the time,” Kuzy said dryly. “I was a leopard for six months when I was thirteen. Hockey was very difficult, but I played best defense on my team for that time.”

“Very funny,” T.J. said. No one missed the silent doubletake where Oshie took in Kuzy’s features once more, just to be sure. 

Tom took out his phone and kneeled in front of the sheep, taking photos and then a selfie with it ("Backy can't eat him if he's an internet celebrity"). Andre, Nate, Grubi, and more of the team started to gather around the sheep for a picture until Alex loudly cleared his throat.

“I’m buying Ovi the sheep a big salad,” he announced. “Nicky, let’s go. Rest of you tell Trotz we’ll be on the ice soon.”

“Do we tell him about the sheep?” Andre asked. 

Of course, the coaches were already behind them at the other door and watching the scene. 

“Tell me what,” Trotz said. “Which of you lazy assholes is the sheep replacing? Or is he here just for moral support? You think Slapshot won’t get jealous?”

“Have fun,” Nicky said to the team as Alex yanked him out of the room by his shirt.

*

“Greenie said you used to talk in your sleep,” Alex said once they were in the parking lot. Apparently, Nicky was walking to sweetgreen with him to buy this massive salad because fuck it, what was twenty more minutes to starting this fucking morning anyway.

“When did he tell you that? Why does it matter to you?” 

“I’m saying maybe if you used to talk in your sleep, maybe you went out in your sleep—”

“I didn’t steal a sheep in my—are you making me _rhyme_?”

Alex smirked and shook his head. “You did that yourself.” 

“The sheep came to my house,” Nicky said. “I haven’t had coffee today and Ovi—”

“You named it after me?”

“I thought it was you! Ovi was nice to me and followed me to the backyard. He ate some plants and flowers and grass, then ate my scrambled eggs—”

“Do sheep eat scrambled eggs?”

“Google didn’t tell me, but he’s still looks all right, doesn’t he?”

“I’ve seen maybe two sheep in my entire life. One of them is in our changing room and you said it looked like me!” 

“It was missing a tooth!”

“Lots of things are missing teeth, Nicky.”

Their brisk walk brought them to the salad place, but Nicky put a firm hand on the door to prevent Alex from opening it.

“It was a big sheep with your hair coloring and the gap in your teeth and it looked like it knew me and it followed me around and it liked me,” Nicky said. “What was I supposed to do? Maybe I was an idiot to think suddenly we woke up in a magic place where you were a sheep for a day, but what was I supposed to do? Not look after you? Not take care of you?”

It was, maybe, the stupidest thing Nicky could have said. Worse: it was true.

“Oh,” Alex said. 

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For—for everything. Everything I ever—”

“What _everything_? What have you—”

“You know why,” Nicky said. “It wasn’t magic.” Nicky swallowed thickly and lifted his hand off the door. “Just—it was stupid. It was wanting. Wanting so much it made me stupid. I’m sorry.”

Apparently, they had now entered yet another parallel universe where Alex could say nothing, not in English or Russian or the mangled bits of Swedish and other languages he had picked up over the years. He could only stare at Nicky, who shook it off and entered the salad place to see how much salad they could reasonably buy and carry at 10:30 in the morning. 

*

Alex insisted on carrying back to Kettler the clean bucket filled with $200 of salad for Ovi the sheep to graze on while they practiced. He insisted on walking back to Kettler in silence, too, because a sheep had wandered into Nicky’s yard and decided to nibble on some shrubs and indirectly cause Nicky to blow up the most important relationship in his life. 

“Maybe the sheep fell off a truck,” Nicky said. “And walked to my house.”

Alex hummed in agreement, yes, maybe, that sounded plausible.

“There were some sheep where I grew up. The rink where we practiced was far from things, so there were sheep grazing sometimes. Lots of them are noisy, but one sneaks up on you—I hated them. They always scared me. Kris and I would come out of practice and there would be one waiting with their creepy eyes, chewing and staring—”

“I like you, too, Nicky.”

In the Kettler lot, Nicky walked into a car and yelled at the jolt of pain.

“Shit, don’t throw yourself under a car because I—”

Nicky, doubled over and massaging the ache out of his thigh, looked up at Alex. 

“You tell me everything,” Alex said. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“You’d kill me. You’d never speak to me again. I didn’t want that.”

“Never. I’d never.”

Nicky stood up straight and nodded. Alex watched him carefully before he spoke again.

“Do you still—can—” Alex rubbed a hand down his face and shook his head. “Can we put this bucket in Ovi’s face, then go to practice, then find out what the _fuck_ people do when they find lost sheep, and then—maybe we can—”

“Do you want to have dinner with me, Sasha?”

Alex nodded. “Yes. Yes, please.”

It seemed like the right time, at 11:15 on a Tuesday morning in the Kettler lot, in the shadow of the monstrous pickup Oshie drove everywhere, for Nicky to lean in and kiss Alex. It was just a soft press of lips with his hand resting gently on the side of Alex’s face. 

Alex kissed him back, so it was everything.

*

Back in the changing room, Ovi the sheep was still there, sitting on his folded legs next to Morgan, one of the social media interns who always seemed to float at the edges of the ice at practices and games. 

“Uh, we called Animal Control?” said Morgan. “Because… that’s a thing?”

“I knew we were forgetting something,” Alex said. “Get out, we have to change.”

“Oh. Oh my god. Of course,” they stammered. “Do you—I can take the bucket and the sheep—”

“His name is Ovi,” Nicky said carefully.

Morgan looked thunderstruck. “No, please don’t tell me that, I—I’ll have to turn it into a feature and stuff and like—you guys found a sheep and you named it Ovi? Come on. Please. My phone is like, phantom tweeting this right now.”

“Tom took a big picture, Ovi and the boys,” Alex said. “Maybe he wants to share?”

“Maybe Animal Control can wait a little bit,” Nicky suggested. “We can be in a little video with Ovi the sheep.”

“You would? You _would_? Thank you thank you thank you, god, this is like when those llamas were on the run.” As Morgan said this, they stood up in a rush, clicking their tongue and urging Ovi the sheep to follow them out of the changing room. Alex handed over the salad bucket to Morgan and the opportunity to plunge its giant sheep face into a grazing bucket was just enough incentive to lead Ovi out of the room. 

Alex looked at Nicky, his eyebrows arched as high as they could go. “Nicklas Backstrom  _volunteered_ to be on camera? He’s gonna be on camera to do something _fun_?”

“Leave me alone,” Nicky laughed. “It’s been a long morning, we still have practice—”

“And you have a date tonight,” Alex said. “Don’t say your day’s been too long for that.”

“No,” Nicky said. “No, never.”

Alex crossed the room to kiss Nicky again, then pulled away quickly when they heard one of the coaches yelling down the corridor about why Ovi the sheep was out by the ice before Ovi the skater. 

“Drinks, too,” Alex said as he started to pull his pads on again at his stall. “Gonna be a long day.”

Nicky nodded and tried to hide his smile. “Yeah, okay. Anything you want.” 

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/screamlet) \+ [reblog](http://screamlet.tumblr.com/post/160118839156/)


End file.
